Abdirahman Ahmed Ali Tuur

Abdirahman Ahmed Ali "Tuur" (var. "Tur", "Tour", meaning "Hunchback" [ [http://www.irb-cisr.gc.ca/en/research/ndp/ref/index_e.htm?docid=233&cid=0&version=printable&disclaimer=show Issue Paper: SOMALIA, UPDATE ON THE SITUATION IN THE NORTH (SOMALILAND)] , Research Directorate of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, January 1995] ) was a Somali politician. He was the first president (1991-2003) of the self-proclaimed but internationally unrecognized Republic of Somaliland in northern Somalia. Born in 1931, Tuur had been a Somali diplomat and government official, and later the Chairman of the Somali National Movement (SNM), a guerilla force drawn from the Isaaq clan, from 1990 to 1994. He was chosen as president on 28 May 1991, five days after the declaration of Somaliland's independence. Under Tuur fighting continued, with bloody fighting as a result of his forces attempt to assert control over the Red Sea port of Berbera. He was replaced with a civilian leader just before the second anniversary of his ascension to office on 16 May 1993. In 1994, Tuur and some of his followers publicly supported a return to Somali under a federalist system, and gave some support for the UNOSOM peace-building mission there, which alienated him from the succeeding government, and most former followers. [ [http://www.h-net.org/~africa/sources/somalirpt.html Somaliland and Peace in the Horn of Africa: A Situation Report and Analysis] , M. Bryden, UN Emergencies Unit for Ethiopia Drafted 13 November 1995. Updated/edited version [http://www.iss.co.za/pubs/asr/13No2/F2.htm Published in African Security Review Vol 13 No 2, 2004] . ] When support in Somalia for his failed to materialise, he was exiled to Ethiopia for almost a decade, before returning to Somaliland on 10 February 2003, 9 months before his death on 8 November 2003.

References

* [http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=4200 "Somaliland: The Other Somalia with No War"] , Suliman Baldo in The Nation (Nairobi), 30 June 2006, The Nation (Nairobi)
* [http://www.somalilandnet.com/intro1.shtml History of Somaliland] , somalilandnet.com
* [http://www.etext.org/Politics/Somalia.News.Update/Volume.3/snu-03.016 THE SECRETARY-GENERAL'S REPORT, ABDIRAHMAN "TUUR", AND SOMALILAND] , SOMALIA News Update, Vol 3, No 16, May 28, 1994. ISSN 1103-1999